Buckeyes and Hoosiers

About Buckeyes and Hoosiers Tour

No one’s ever said it better than Harry Truman: “The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know.” Americans have long neglected the history of the Gilded Age, that post-Civil War adolescence when a divided land gradually coalesced around railroads and robber barons, exploding industries and wartime promises tragically deferred, massive immigration and festering inequalities. And, oh yes – some of the most colorful, contentious, and occasionally corrupt, politics and politicians in our history. It’s an incredibly rich pageant, one that will serve as the backdrop for our travel back to the origins of today’s America. Situated in the heart of downtown Columbus, the Renaissance Hotel is our historical base camp for the entire tour. More presidents. Less packing.

Beginning the last week of May, we’ll visit sites associated with eight (mostly Gilded Age) presidents in Ohio and Indiana. Not to mention a host of historically significant women, from Lucy Hayes and Lucretia Garfield, to Florence “the Duchess” Harding, Nellie Taft and Ida McKinley. Such an itinerary allows for more in depth – dare I say, leisurely – exploration of the surprising McKinley era, the boyhood homes of Ulysses Grant and William Howard Taft, and the decidedly immodest post presidential estates of Rutherford and Lucy Hayes, and Indiana’s favorite son Benjamin Harrison. In Marion, Ohio we’ll tour the brand new Harding Presidential Library and Museum, as well as the newly restored Harding home as it appeared on Election Night, 1920. In fact, a majority of the 20 attractions we’ll visit are either themselves new to us, or places completely renovated/reimagined since any earlier travels.

Tour Itinerary

Day 1

May

Columbus, OH

We meet as a group this morning in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel, situated in the heart of downtown Columbus. Our first stop today is the Ohio History Center, with extensive exhibits tracing the state’s origins from the Ice Age to the present. The Smithsonian Guide to Historic America described the center as "the finest museum in America devoted to pre-European history." Next, we’ll explore bucolic Ohio Village, a living history museum providing a firsthand view of middle American life during and after the American Civil War. After lunch, we’ll visit the impressive Ohio State Capitol, from whose steps Governor William McKinley daily waved to his invalid wife across the street in the Neil House Hotel. A memorable Welcome Dinner is planned.

Day 2

May

Niles, OH

We’ll breakfast at the hotel this morning before traveling to Niles, OH to visit the President William McKinley Birthplace and the nearby National McKinley Birthplace Memorial. After lunch, we journey to Canton, OH, and the impressive William McKinley Tomb. Third largest of all presidential tombs – behind Lincoln and Grant – it took six years to build and was reportedly inspired by the Taj Mahal. Dinner is again included this evening.

Day 3

May

Northbend, OH

After breakfast at the hotel, we travel to North Bend, OH, final resting place of our 9th President William Henry Harrison. Born in Virginia, as an adult he gained fame in the War of 1812 and as governor of the Indiana Territory before settling in North Bend on land overlooking a wide sweep of the Ohio River (it was also here that his grandson, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, was born). After his death just a month into his presidency, Harrison returned to Ohio via a procession of black-draped river barges. He was laid to rest here on July 7, 1841. After lunch we journey to Cincinnati, family home of President William Howard Taft. Situated high atop one of city’s most prominent hilltops stands this two-story Greek Revival house where Taft was born and grew up. We’ll also explore the adjacent Taft Education Center which features a museum and several interactive exhibits. Our last stop today is Georgetown, OH and the boyhood home of our 18th President Ulysses S. Grant from 1823 until 1839, when he left to attend West Point. Grant lived in this home longer than any other during his lifetime. Returning to the hotel, dinner this evening is on our own.

Day 4

May

Indianapolis, IN

We’ll breakfast at the hotel this morning before traveling to Indianapolis, home to President Benjamin Harrison. As a successful attorney, Harrison began construction of this 16-room Italianate style house in 1874. After his presidency Harrison returned to Indianapolis in 1893 (his wife Caroline died in the White House during Harrison’s unsuccessful re-election campaign). Harrison made several changes to the home, adding an English-Regency front porch, electricity and modernized plumbing. In 1896 he married his wife’s niece, Mary Lord Dimmick. Harrison died in the home on March 13, 1901. After lunch in Indianapolis, and a stop at Harrison’s gravesite, we head to Rushville, IN, and the final resting place of presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, the only native Hoosier ever nominated for the presidency by a major political party. His grave features a large granite book inscribed with quotations from his "One World." Returning to our hotel, some time before dinner.

Day 5

May

Marion, OH

After breakfast, a free morning to shop, explore Columbus, or just sleep in. At noon we’re off to Marion, OH and the newly restored Warren Harding Home, 29th president of the United States. The home became best known as the site of his 1920 “Front Porch Campaign.” The home features many of the original furnishings owned by President Harding and his wife, Florence. The newly constructed Harding Presidential Library & Museum showcases the life of the president and first lady and the times in which they lived. We’ll also visit their final resting place at the beautiful Harding Memorial. Returning to the hotel, some time before dinner.

Day 6

May

Fremont, OH

We’ll breakfast at the hotel this morning before traveling to Fremont, OH and spectacular Spiegal Grove, home of President Rutherford B. Hayes. As our 19th president, Hayes served from 1877-1881. Prior to being elected president he was also Governor of Ohio, a U.S. Congressman, and a General in the Civil War. The home is a 31-room mansion and centerpiece of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museum. Hayes spent twenty years planning additions and improvements to his home and Spiegel Grove estate, much as Thomas Jefferson had done with his beloved Monticello. The recently renovated museum houses more than 20,000 artifacts, including personal memorabilia, Civil War weapons, a collection of military uniforms, Hayes administration state China, artifacts owned by several other U.S. presidents, and an impressive collection of 19th century toys. We’ll also pause to pay our respects at Hayes’ gravesite. Dinner is again included.

Day 7

May

Moreland Hills, OH

Today is Garfield Day. After breakfast at the hotel, we’ll visit his birthplace in Moreland Hills, and the sprawling Victorian home of our nation’s 20th president. During the 1880 presidential election, Garfield conducted what became the first successful front porch campaign from the home, which became known as "Lawnfield" by campaign reporters. On July 2, 1881, he was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker. Following the president’s death in September, Guiteau was quickly convicted of Garfield's murder and sent to the scaffold. Four years later, Lucretia Garfield added the Memorial Library Wing, anticipating the nation’s presidential libraries. After lunch, we travel the short distance to Cleveland, and to Lake View Cemetery, Garfield’s final resting place. After his death, a Blue-Ribbon Committee was formed by several prominent citizens, including Rutherford B. Hayes and John D. Rockefeller. An international competition was held, and the 180-foot-tall memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1890. Returning to Columbus, we’ll enjoy a special Farewell Dinner.

Day 8

Tour Includes

Admission fees to all historic sites, attractions and museums listed on the itinerary included.
All taxes and gratuities included for all group functions, including meals, guides, bellmen, and motor coach driver.
Deluxe Accommodations: Renaissance Downtown Columbus (May 25 – June 1, 2023)
Deluxe transportation via climate controlled motor coach, featuring on-board restroom, individual 110-volt power supply access (for cell phones, DVD players, iPads or lap tops), as well as Wi-Fi (wireless internet) throughout the coach.
Meals: Tour includes seven (7) breakfasts, seven (7) lunches, and six (6) dinners.
Please Note: there will be a fair amount of walking involved on this tour.

Meet Your Host

Richard Norton Smith is a nationally recognized authority on the American presidency and a familiar face to viewers of C-SPAN, as well as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Following graduation from Harvard in 1975, he worked as a White House intern and a speech writer for Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. In 1979 he went to work for Senator Bob Dole, with whom he collaborated on several volumes of autobiography and political humor.

Smith’s first major book, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. He has also written An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1984), The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (1986), Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (1993), The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, which received the prestigious Goldsmith Prize awarded by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School, and has been described by Hilton Kramer as “the best book ever written about the press.” In October 2014 Random House published On His Own Terms, a monumental life of Nelson Rockefeller described by Douglas Brinkley as “one of the greatest cradle to grave biographies written in the past 50 years,” and tagged in advance by Amazon as one of the fall’s Twenty Big Books in Biography and Memoir.

Between 1987 and 2001, Mr. Smith served as Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and the Reagan Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California; the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan respectively.

In December, 2001 Mr. Smith became director of the new Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. There he supervised construction of the Institute’s $11.3 million permanent home and launched a Presidential Lecture Series and other high profile programs. In October, 2003 he was appointed the first Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a four building complex in Springfield, Illinois. The Library opened to the public in 2004 and the Museum opened the next year.

Much in demand as a speaker, in 2009 Smith was invited by Congress to be one of two historians addressing it on the two hundred anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Earlier, millions of television viewers heard him deliver the final eulogy at Gerald Ford’s Michigan funeral, a role he repeated at Betty Ford’s request when she was laid to rest beside her husband in 2011. Smith is currently at work on a biography of President Ford. Twice a year he personally leads historical tours (www.presidentsandpatriots.com) emphasizing American presidents and history rarely found in the text books.

Book Now!

Total for 1 Traveler:	$4,975
Today's Deposit:	$1,000

Total for 2 Travelers:	$7,990
Total per Traveler:	$3,995 x 2
Today's Deposit (2 Travelers):	$2,000

Total per Traveler:	$3,995 x 2
Total for 2 Travelers:	$7,990

Trip total
Total per traveler:	$3,995 x 2
Total for 2 travelers:	$7,990

Deposit total
Deposit (per traveler):	$1,000 x 2
Today's deposit payment:	$2,000.00

Trip total
Total for 1 traveler:	$4,975.00

Deposit total
Deposit:	$1,000
Today's deposit payment:	$1,000.00

Total for 2 travelers:	$7,990.00
MI tax (6%):	$479.40
Total trip payment:	$8,469.40

Total for 1 traveler:	$4,975.00
MI tax (6%):	$298.50
Total trip payment:	$5,273.50

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May 25, 2023 - June 1, 2023